


Love Child

by bedlinens



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, past Carol/Merle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 08:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6148237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bedlinens/pseuds/bedlinens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story is a non ZA, taking place at the end of WW2. Daryl and Carol find themselves thrust together by fate and must learn to deal with this curveball.<br/>This fic will have elements of Carol/Merle, but it is very much a Caryl fic, and the Merol bits are necessary to the intrigue but they are not a manifesto for this ship. Please trust me there</p><p>Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author.  The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise.  No copyright infringement is intended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Georgia, 9th of April 1945, Middle of nowhere-ish

 

Daryl looked at the fields in front of the family home. He needed to get working on those, he had been wanting to ever since he had gotten back from the hospital. They needed the harvest, for when Merle would be back. Sure, it was late to start seeding, but he could at least prepare the fields for when that time would come.

He thought about buying a couple of pigs, maybe four altogether, two breeding pairs. Piglets were sure to follow, and piglets meant more pigs later that he would be able to sell. He thought about killing them for food, but the War… It had changed him, in ways he did not like.

And it was still not done. Daryl had been sent back to his home, fully discharged and with honors, after spending almost 5 months in a hospital on the West coast, near Seattle. The weather had made him miserable, making him miss sweet Georgia. When he had enlisted after Pearl Harbor, he had been sent to the Pacific theater, against the Japanese. It had been bloody, and warm, and hellish, and the more he thought about it, the less he could come up with words to describe it. He had been a copilot, and he had shelled opposite troops during various missions, only to be shelled right back, and not a day went by without him thinking about the kid who had died even though Daryl was certain he shouldn’t have been old enough to enlist. Memories like that one were just another side effect of this war... He remembered the feeling he had always had in his chest upon entering the general’s tent. The military men had kept all the dog tags they had been able to salvage from their fallen comrades, so that they could be sent to their families. It was in the past, it was the kind of past that didn’t want to die.

Merle had enlisted at the same time he had, and his brother had been sent several places, ending up in Europe last Daryl had heard. News was slow to come in. They hadn’t written to one another, knowing those letters would be wasted in the wind, or read by people who had no business reading them. Not to mention, the Dixon brothers were not big on writing letters in general, let alone, talk about feelings.

As always, when he thought of Merle, Daryl felt a pinch in his heart and he prayed that his brother was ok, somewhere.

Daryl had heard on the news earlier that the US had used the atomic bomb on a Japanese city, Nagasaki, and Daryl had found himself counting his blessings. Getting injured and being discharged had been a blessing. He had been part of that corps who had dropped the bombs on Hiroshima first, then on Nagasaki, though not really, not having part of the bombardment squadron. Yet, as a pilot, if they were family in war, trying to get each other home safely, there was also a sense of shared responsibility amongst the group, as wide as it was. What had been happening in Japan was something he felt should and would be on his conscience. He did not see himself as a compassionate guy, or maybe he had lost his compassion when he had been almost killed over and over in the jungle over a certain island in the Pacific, but he couldn’t imagine the toll it must have taken on the pilots to drop those bombs.

In every war, there were civilians, children, women, people who didn’t deserve to have to go through this mess (though did anyone actually deserve to have to go through this?) and he had met a few of those while on missions. Those bombs, they killed everyone, and when they didn’t kill, they did worse. He had heard people talking about it while he was at the hospital and some army staff had been in to visit the veterans, assuring them that Japan would soon fall to its knees with the new weapons project they had finished. The commanders visiting had thought they were bringing good news, and maybe they had to some, but Daryl had gotten this feeling, in the pit of his stomach, which had resurfaced after Hiroshima was targeted and again this morning when they mentioned Nagasaki. This war... It was the end of mankind...

He got up, feeling the usual pain in his hip and leg. When his plane had been shot down, they had been fired at and he had been injured in so many places, people had thought he would die. He hadn't, being the stubborn son of a bitch he was. His pilot had not been so lucky, dying in the air.

He needed to get his hands busy so that there would be no time to wonder where his brother was, and what this all meant for men in general. The things he heard on radio, the pictures he saw in the newspaper... Europe was in pain, and he thought of his brother.

Daryl was going to turn 27, but he felt like he was 127. It was not so much the physical pain but the things he had to endure, like all of them, that were wearing him down.

The fields, he thought. He needed to make them ready for the next cycle. And he needed pigs. Pigs were a good investment. Maybe a cow too. Not so much for calves, but for milk. He was on a military pension, and he couldn’t afford so much. Thank goodness this house had been built by his great great grandparents.

He looked at a picture his mother had framed, of her two boys, when they were young. He missed his brother more than he would ever say. He felt tears in his eyes but refused to let them run. He needed to get things in order, for when Merle would be back.

There was a knock on the door, and Daryl almost reached out for his rifle, out of habit. It was probably one of his neighbors. They all had daughters who were of age, and even though he was not rich, Daryl was a catch insofar as he was not seriously wounded and would have a life when the war was over. Those poor girls, he thought, whose parents would give them to anybody on such little criteria...

He got to the door, and opened it.

There was a woman there, and if his eyes didn't deceive him, she was pregnant. She looked exhausted and terrified. She had very short hair, and he thought about the pictures he had seen in the papers, where some people were shaven publicly. He hadn't read the article, being fed up with war already.

The woman had a small suitcase, and she was wearing clothes that were not what he was used to at all. She looked broken, yet determined. Her eyes were on his face, and he could see she was making a great effort not to give in to emotions. She was pretty, looked young, fragile, but there was a sense, an inner strength in her... What was she doing here? As if to answer his question, she opened her mouth.

"Hello," She said. "My name is Carol Dixon. Or at least if God had been kind, it would have been.”

This took Daryl's breath away.


	2. Big Brother No More

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: the Colmar Pocket was the last part of France to be held by the Nazis. It was freed after a siege from November 1944 to February 1945. The French Army was allied with the US army there, and though their contribution is not often mentionned to glorify the newly rebuilt French Army, resistants were part of the combats, helping either with brutal force or assuring back "office" support.

He needed a minute, except he didn’t have it, and neither did she.

“Please come in,” he said, and very slowly, she did.

He watched her silhouette, and saw it all, the protuberant belly, made even more obvious by how emaciated she looked. She was pale, and she looked to be running on the last of her energy. He noticed that some of her skin was a little red around the neck, and was reminded that not everybody was used to the Georgian weather.

Carefully, he reached out for the suitcase, and she seemed to snap out of the reverie or nightmare she seemed to be living. She let him take the case and said:

“Thank you very much. I’m sorry to be a bother, but may I sit?”

“Of course, of course,“ he said, wanting to put his hand on her back to lead her to the living room quicker, but not acting on it.

He didn’t know what she had been through, just like she didn’t know what kind of baggage he came with. It felt especially important to respect her personal space. He gestured for the living room, and she slowly walked there, one hand going to her stomach.

He noticed that she didn’t know where to sit, but then seemed to decide that she had too much on her plate already and went to sit on the couch, which seemed to do wonders to her back.

“I’m quite sorry to bother you at home, and in such a dramatic fashion,“ she said.

He realized he had been standing up, and he ran to the kitchen to fix her a glass of water.

“We have iced tea too, if you’d rather,” he said, before handing her the glass.

“Water is perfect, thank you.”

She took a sip, and he could tell she was looking for words as she did so.

“My name is Carol Peletier,” she said finally. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but…”

And she reached in a pocket for something, before putting it on the table in front of him.

He knew what that was, he could tell those were dog tags. His hand went to his neck, where his own were still hanging, and he carefully looked at the items she had displayed. There was pain in her eyes, terrible pain, and even before he read the name, he knew.

Dixon, Merle G., 359-12-4976… The rest of the information faded before his eyes as he felt tears threaten to spill. Those were his brother’s dog tags, and their meaning was so painful he could barely breathe.

Merle was dead.

Oh fuck.

Merle was fucking dead.

Stupid bastard.

Fuck.

“My brother is dead,” Daryl said, as expletives continued to roll in his head.

“I’m afraid he is,” Carol said, and she looked about to fall over.

“Was it a good death?” He found himself asking, yet wondering what any of those words really meant and what the answer would change for him.

“He died doing his duty, during the assault on Berlin. It was a clean death. I met one of his friends who had seen him pass… He didn’t suffer. I don’t know if it qualifies as a good death, but it was full of dignity, and honor.”

Neither of them spoke for the longest moment, as he touched his brother’s dog tags, and wondered what the fucker had been thinking, if he had time to think, if he had suffered. He wondered If the friend who supposedly had told everything to Carol had lied to protect the woman, or if his brother had gotten the death she had mentioned. He supposed there was dignity in it, but death was death. That dignity she had mentioned, you didn’t take it with you in the next adventure. Death was death.

“Who are you?” He finally asked, prying his eyes from the dog tag.

“Carol Peletier. French citizen. I met Merle when we were both fighting to free the Colmar pocket as you Yankees say. We.. we fell in love, and he asked me to marry him. And then, he died.” She said, and Daryl could see that the tears were there, but she was not willing to fall apart.

“I know you must be wondering what I am doing here, but when I went to the American army staff in Paris to learn more about the fate of my fiancé, they gave me his dog tags, saying I could keep them as a souvenir, like I was not already carrying a ‘souvenir’ of his,” she said with air quotes. “I held on to those tags until they told me that you were still alive, and back at home. I decided to bring them to you. You deserve to know what happened to your brother. They were kind in giving me this reminder, but they were depriving you of closure… Is that the word?” She asked, suddenly worried.

“Yes, yes it is. You speak great English.”

“I knew some of it before the war, had a British nanny when I was a young girl, and when the war happened, I learned some less posh English, with British, Canadian and American soldiers.”

For a brief second, he wondered if she had slept with those men. It was irrational and terribly insulting, but he wondered.

“I assure you my relationships with those soldiers was only that of a sister for her brother,” she said, as if reading his mind.

“I’m sorry… I’m… all over the place…”

“I know. I get it. But the baby I carry, it is Merle’s.”

She put her hand on her stomach with a whimper, and he wondered if she was hungry until he realized the baby must have kicked.

“I came here to give you your brother’s dog tags, as you say, and to give you this…”

She handed him a piece of paper, and Daryl needed a moment before he could read what it said upon recognizing his brother’s chicken like writing.

“Sup Darylina. Guess I’m dead. Carol was supposed to come and give you this if the Nazis got to me. I guess they did. I hope it wasn’t a friendly fire from the russkov which got me dead. Anyway, I’m gone. I’m sorry. Please, take care of Carol, if she will let you. I was going to marry her, and we were going to have plenty of babies. Our parents’ dream would have come true. Carol is … I don’t have enough words to describe her. Please, baby brother, take care of her. I love you. Your brother, Merle.”

He had to get up and pretended to look out the window as he thought of the note his brother had left with the French woman. This was too much, just too much…

He turned around suddenly when he heard the woman get up and start gathering her suitcase.

“Where are you going?” He asked her, and he hated the fact that his tone was less than kind.

“I delivered all the terrible news I had promised to carry. I am leaving you alone. You have my deepest condolences and sympathy. Merle was… There are no polite words to describe Merle really. But he was a good man. I’m sorry…”

“You lost him too.”

“That’s the war.”

“Where will you be going?”

“I don’t know, but I won’t be a bother to you.”

“Please, Carol, Miss Peletier,” he found himself saying, and the sincerity in his voice was no lie. “Stay. Maybe just for a couple of days, maybe more. You look exhausted. That’s my nephew or niece you’re carrying. Please, in memory of Merle, let me give you shelter, at least until you can really think about what you need or want to do.”

He saw a tear roll down her cheek, and he wanted to wipe it away.

“What if I can’t leave, because I keep getting bigger and bigger, and I end up having the baby? I can’t impose on you this way.”

“Please, Carol. Just stay. We’ll see if you can leave in a couple of days, or if Merle’s s brat will be born in the Dixon house. Just… please. Stay. You don’t have to talk. However having you here, even for a couple of days… Merle is gone and I can’t be alone mourning his sorry ass.”

He wished he had been smoother, but she had a chuckle at the way he described his brother.

“One night then, and then I get out of your hair.”

He understood she didn’t want to impose, but in her belly was Merle’s offspring. He couldn’t lose both his brother and his offspring on the same day. He hoped to convince her so. In the meantime, he took her suitcase, and led her to their nicest bedroom, his brother’s dog tags still held firmly in his palm.

 


	3. Mac And Cheese

As Daryl closed the door on the room he had showed her, Carol felt like she would melt in a puddle of sweat, both from the heat and exhaustion. The room was nice, and he had apologized over and over again because there had been some traces of dust here and there, but Carol didn’t care. She just was thankful for having a place to stay tonight. She had taken a bus to get here and then she had walked, and she was simply exhausted.

 Part of her felt completely in charge, knew exactly what she was doing here, but there was this other part of her which couldn’t catch up it seemed. That part of her had been feeling that way for a while now, and it became more difficult as days went by to know for sure if it was just a “part”, a side, or if it was something she was really pondering.

 She put a hand on her belly, and felt another kick. The baby was healthy, that was good. She tried to take comfort where she could find it.

 She looked around, and knew immediately that she had been put in the master bedroom. She remembered Merle describing the house to her, saying this was were his parents used to sleep, before they had died of consumption, and he had told her that they would make it their own, their marital bedroom.

 Carol was not the kind of girl who would have fallen for a smooth talker, and this was not what Merle had promised her. Yet, he had been smooth, and he had been hers and….

 She wanted to cry, even more as she remembered the look on Daryl’s face as she had given him his brother’s dog tags.

 Everything felt surreal, and she felt like she could say everything was surreal and no one would be able to dispute her use of that word.

 She took off her shoes, and rubbed her feet, best she could. She wanted to go to sleep, right then, and when she woke up some time later, she realized she must have.

  She then got up from the bed, and saw that the night was falling fast. She quickly cleaner her face in a bowl of water that Daryl had carried inside when he had showed her the room. She made her way outside the room, and tried to trace her steps back to the kitchen.

 There, she heard two voices, and she wasn’t sure what to do. One was Daryl, and the other was that of a woman. She walked slowly and silently, but Daryl spotted her right away. He got up, and she saw that he had his brother’s dog tags in his head.

 “I’m sorry... I didn’t mean to…” She started.

 “Don’t,” the woman exclaimed, though her eyes were red. “I am Andrea Stiles, Daryl is my cousin twice removed.”

 “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Merle always had…” Carol felt a ball in her throat and she tried to swallow it back down. “Merle always had colourful anecdotes about the three of you growing up.”

 Unexpectedly, the blonde woman got up, and slowly pulled her into a hug. At first, Carol was not sure what to do, but she found herself leaning in, as the woman gave her a kiss on the cheek.

 “Welcome to the family, Carol. Anything, you need, you ask. I will leave you, Amy is supposed to be cooking dinner but I’m afraid she’ll burn down the house…”

 She reluctantly let go of Carol who felt the withdrawal and found herself feeling alone, as the woman kissed her cousin’s cheek, and got out of the house.

 The two strangers were left in the kitchen, unsure about what they should do or say.

 “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” she said.

 “That’s like being sorry for breathing… You needed it,” Daryl said, before getting up as if to get dinner started.

 “I am sorry to impose, perhaps, I can cook for you tonight? As a thank you?” Carol asked.

 “How… How about tomorrow? You’re tired, I can see it. And I … Fuck me. I’m sorry, my ma taught never to swear in front of a lady.”

 “No offense taken, it’s not like I’m a lady anyway,” Carol said, running a hand through her short hair with ache. “You need to do something that feels familiar, while you deal with the sad news I delivered. I can cook tomorrow. I just didn’’t want you to have to deal with feeding me on top of…”

 “I want to. And you’re a lady,” Daryl said.

 She smiled, but she would had sworn it didn’t reach her eyes.

 “Sit, I’ll make dinner,” Daryl said, pulling a chair for her.

 She walked there, and slowly sat herself down, her belly in the way as always. He looked at her doing so, and she said:

 “Not very graceful, but I dare anyone to sit with three pillows strapped to their stomach and be graceful…”

 He seemed to want to disagree, but she had a feeling he didn’t know where he stood with her, nor how to treat her and she couldn’t blame him.

 He pulled out the plates and cutlery, and she set it as best as she could.

 He was preparing something in a pot, and the smell would normally have made her frown, but she realized she was really hungry.

 He came, and gave her a serving, saying:

 “I’m sorry, I need to go get some groceries. All I have was enough to do mac and cheese…”

 “That’s okay,” she said.

 He sat down after serving his plate, and they had an awkward moment where they sort of waited for the others to start saying grace, though none really cared about it.

 “Dig in,” he said, and she did.

 This was not completely inedible, far from it, but she still had reservations about it.

 “Typical American dish,” he said.

 “That is not cheese,” she said, pointing to the stuff covering the pasta, “but it is good. Thank you, you’re a great cook.”

 “No I’m not! Daryl exclaimed, chuckling for the first time since she had met him. “That’s all I can cook without poisoning someone… And it comes from a box…”

 “Then tomorrow, I cook. I learnt with my mother, she is a cordon bleu…”

 “Ok,” he said.

 She wanted to answer any questions he may have, but he was not forthcoming with those. She didn’t dare start to talk, she didn’t know what he wanted to hear, what he didn’t want to hear, and if he wanted to hear anything at all.

 She tried to convince him to let her help do the dishes, but he would only agree to handing her the cleaned ustensils for her to dry with a towel.

 “So…” She said.

 “So.”

 “Good night,” she said, but it sounded very much like a question, as if she doubted the very words she was saying.

 “Don’t hesitate to come to me, if you need help with anything,” he said, then blushed.

 They were both so awkward. He was the polar opposite of his brother.

 She smiled and went to the bedroom. She got her belongings to use the bathroom and have a closer wash. The air was humid, and she felt like she would barely be able to stand the feeling of her nightgown on her skin that night.

 She finally got to bed, and sleep eluded her. She watched everything in the room, the ceiling… She tried to count sheeps. However her brain seemed to want to process everything right now.

 This should have been the place where Merle would have taken her after the war. She found herself weeping, before she noticed it, and when she tried to stop it, it got only worse. This was a life she should have had. Instead, she had fled France, and she had lost her fiancé. She was going to have a child, and she didn’t know if she could do it.

 She tried to muffle her cries in the pillow.

 

TWDTWD

 

Just next door, almost naked beneath the sheet, Daryl listened to the woman’s cries, his fist clenched around his brother’s dog tags. He wanted to come to her, but they didn’t know each other. Instead, he listened, powerless, and tried not to cry himself, without too much success. Merle...

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are more than welcome, as I find myself having trouble getting a feel of what you are thinking.


	4. My brother's wife, or is she mine?

 She woke up when it was still dark, and felt like there would be no going back to bed for her. It was the time difference, her whole body was still on French time, and she needed time to adapt. She remembered the tale of an aunt who had moved to Australia, and who would write back that even a decade after she had left the City of Lights, she still felt sometimes like she was on Paris time. Carol hoped it wouldn’t happen to her.

Then again, what did she really hope for? She wasn’t sure. She was replaying the previous day’s events in her head, and she barely understood it. She got what she had done and said, what he had done and said. Yet, it felt… Not surreal, but unreal. Like she would wake up in her own bed anytime soon, or on a cot in a resistance camp, and things would back to normal…

Then again, was there a normal? Before she had left, she had heard about the macabre discoveries the US and Russian soldiers had made in the camps they had liberated, and though she had never been silly enough to believe those were work factories where Jewish people and political opponents were sent to work, the descriptions she had heard had made her blood froze in her veins. There was no official story so far, but the tales she had heard from soldiers of various nations… It defied normalcy. How could one call the world they were living in normal, after all that had happened that they knew of, and all that they didn’t know about yet but had happened also?

 Here, in Georgia, it felt like another world. She knew it was just because she was on a farm away from civilization in a certain way, but it felt… Ok. Not normal, but like you could go through the day and not question what had happened to mankind every ten seconds. She knew she would think about it, but there were no destroyed buildings from shelling everywhere, and she could see no soldiers anywhere around. Maybe this was one instance when America truly deserved the name of “New World”. Oh, there would be so much work to do with the old one, on the old continent, once this was war done, but it felt like a respite.

 She wondered if she deserved such a gift, sitting on the porch of the house, watching the sun slowly rose.

 At some point, she heard some slight noises in the kitchen, noises she would never have picked up on before everything that had happened those past few years, and she saw through the window that Daryl was up.

 She took a deep breath, and then another, and another. What she had told him the day before… She tried to reassure herself by telling herself that there was no way she could have done it any other way, but still. She had unloaded so many things on the shoulders of a man she barely knew, a man who had survived the war from what she had been told then seen, but whose mind she didn’t know. Some people fell apart. Some even blew their brains out. Some soldiered on, until that moment when they snapped. Only the truly heartless and unworthy of saving could get right back up and continue and never ever think again about what they had been told. She could tell he was not like that, at all.

 She looked at the horizon, at the other farms you could see in the distance. She wondered which one was Andrea’s. She saw the fields, and thought about the work that would have to be done to be able to harvest something next time it was time. The French farmers had it down to an art, the way they used different grains to have food all year long, or they did before the war, and she was sure it was the case here also, but the fields before her eyes, they were not barren, they were abandoned, and there were roots that would need to be cleared before anything could be done.

 “Yep, the fields are a mess,” Daryl said in a low voice as he opened the door.

He was carrying a mug of coffee, she could tell from the smell. It didn’t make her sick, thankfully that part of her pregnancy was done.

“I was fixing myself some Joe, and I wondered if you wanted some,” he said, and she noticed the way he sometimes seemed to have a hard time looking at her.

 Did he think of Merle when he saw her? That would break her heart, she didn’t want to be a constant reminder of his grief. She had stayed because he had asked and she had not thought about what she would do once she had dropped all her bombs on him, but if it hurt him, then she needed to leave, get out of his hair.

“I thank you, but while I like coffee, it makes the baby go wild.”

“Can I get you anything else?” he asked, and this time their eyes met.

He really wanted to do something for her.

“Thank you so much for your attention again, but I need time before I can eat anything in the morning.”

He nodded, and he came closer to her, though he never sat down next to her on the bench.

“What are we doing, Daryl?” she asked him.

He seemed surprised, and the look he gave her confirmed her hunch.

“Maybe the question should be “what am I doing” instead. I didn’t mean to pressure you. I just… I stayed last night, but I don’t know what happens next.”

She wanted to cry, and she blamed the pregnancy. What was going on with her? Carrying life didn’t mean you lost your brain or your countenance…

He put the cup of coffee on the ground, and very carefully came to sit on the bench.

“You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want.”

She wanted to tell him it was not this simple, and that there was so much more to think about, but he put his hand on hers, and she smiled softly at him, squeezing his hand.

“I promised you a French lunch… Do you want me to write you down a list of things to pick up? I have some money of course…”

“Uh Uh, don’t even go there… You’re my guest.”

“A guest you didn’t chose…”

“I could have sent you away, but I invited you to stay. Don’t try to read things that aren’t there…”

They stayed silent, his hand on hers, and she could tell things were happening in his head.

At one point, she felt him get up, and he was not letting go of her hand. He kneeled in front of her, and he said:

“Carol, please, marry me.”

She found herself gaping at that.

“But… I haven’t even cooked for you yet!” She said, while beating herself in her head for that lame come back.

He laughed, and very carefully, he put a hand toward her stomach. She grabbed his hand, and put it where the baby was kicking.

“This… This is my nephew. If Merle had come back, he would have brought you back here, and I would have gotten to know you and my nephew. Things aren’t what we want them to be… But I thought about it last night. And Andrea brought several things to my attention. I want you to stay with me, not because I want to… Or I expect… I just want you to stay with me, and maybe tell me about my brother, and how the war had changed him, or even If that had not been able to change him. However, if you stay, people will talk. I don’t want them to say anything. I would you like to marry me, and allow me to be part of your life.”

And he looked at her, and she truly looked at him.

“I … Don’t you have a girl somewhere?”

“I would like you to agree to marry me.”

She couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t say he wanted her to marry him, he was giving her a choice…

“But you don’t know me…”

“We’ll get to know each other.”

“What if you meet someone you fall in love with?”

“We’ll cross that bridge, when we come to it. I would never abandon you. Please, Carol…”

Her mother used to say that when you didn’t know what to think or say, you needed to trust your guts.

“Ok, “she heard herself say. “I will.”

He squeezed her hand, as they both took in what they had just agreed to do.

Three hours later, they were married, with Andrea and Amy as witnesses.

 


	5. Goodbye Blackbird

When they got back home, it was still pretty early in the day, perhaps around 11AM, and Carol was not sure about anything.

She was a married woman.

She had never wanted to be a married woman.

Yet, when Merle had asked, she had said yes. She had thought about it time and time again, and she was pretty sure she would have married him, but that when he had made his proposal, saying yes had been a way to make sure the man would stay in her life.

Instead she had just married his younger brother.

And … She just didn’t know what to make of any of it.

She put the hat Andrea had brought for her to use on the spot on the wall, and she stopped. It was not so much deciding to stop, it was very much realizing she was in a house she didn’t know and she had married a man she didn’t know much more, and everything was not how it was supposed to be.

Amy had run back to the girls’ farm, saying she would bring back food for the newlyweds to have a peaceful meal before they went public. The Stiles sisters were very kind, and Carol could not have asked for better people to be interested in her. Same went for their cousin.

The priest had married them very quickly, as things were done maybe less strictly. He had given them a form to fill that he would later drop to the town hall, though it should have been the other way around. He had not said much, but reverend Greene had explained that with the war, they were not the first couple to have come knocking on his door to be married as soon as possible in the eyes of God before a man went to war. He didn’t comment on their situation, didn’t ask anything, and that was just as well frankly. Carol wouldn’t have known what to say.

She put a hand on her belly, and realized that Daryl was watching her from afar, waiting for her to be done so that he could hang his own hat.

“I’m so sorry,” she apologized as she moved out of the way.

“Don’t be.”

She liked the way he didn’t say anything more, something along the line of “you’re entitled to needing a moment or whatever”. She had a feeling some people would have commented like it was their business, like they knew. The only people who really knew what was going were the both of them. There was no point in wasting breath saying things the other knew or didn’t know.

“I don’t regret marrying you,” she said, and she wondered if to him it would come out of nowhere. “I just…”

“Don’t know what comes next,” he said as he hung his hat, and she nodded.

He sighed, and she knew he was having as much trouble as she was with everything.

“I don’t regret marrying you either. This afternoon, we will go out, if you want, and we will buy clothes for you that are better suited for this weather. I hope you will agree, I am afraid you will cook if you keep wearing those clothes you have. Then we could pick up what you want so that you can make that French meal you’ve been telling me about.”

What he didn’t say was that now that they were married, she would be able to go in any shop and not fear judgement. She instinctively knew that, he, like her, would deflect or else point blank refuse to answer any questions about their union.

She walked closer to him, and very carefully, put her hand on top of his.

“I would like that, but I may need to rest before we can go… I’m sorry, it’s … Well, no point in being sorry, but yes, what you’ve offered we do, I think it would be good. I won’t want to spend too much money in clothes, as I will only stay pregnant so long, but I won’t lie and pretend my clothes are suited for this weather.”

“Carol,” he said, and it felt very solemn. “I want you to know… You’re mine now, and I’m yours. The clothes, if you wanted a dozen or more, I wouldn’t care. If you only want one dress, I’m fine with it. We’re a team I suppose. And most importantly, I don’t expect anything. I will not try to make my way into your bed tonight.”

“According to the law, you would have every right…”

“Maybe, one day, if we find ourselves in a situation where we can think of those things, and want those things, it could happen, but in the meantime, I did not ask you to marry me to force your hand into anything. We’re still strangers, and I want us to get to know each other, as best as we can, while we wait for Merle Junior to pop out.”

Tears pooled in her eyes and she said:

“You’d consider naming the baby Merle?”

“I’m sorry, I never asked what you wanted. However, if you were so inclined, if it’s a boy, I would like for the baby to be named after Merle… We have time to discuss it though…”

She realized she had not let go of his hand, and she was having a hard time finding what she wanted to do next.

“Do you know that in French, Merle means “blackbird”?”

This made the man smile, perhaps for the first time since they had gone out, and she felt happy for a moment, before the guilt set back in.

He was saving her life. Her baby would not be a bastard…

He pulled on her hand, to get her to sit down on the couch.

“I saw that you wrote down your name like we do in English,” he said, changing subjects, and she knew he had felt her emotion.

“I was born on Christmas day and Papa didn’t like Noelle.  He didn’t like Christine. There was this British nanny in the house, for my elder brother, and she told Papa about Christmas carols. Since Carole is a French name, he thought it would be a good compromise.”

“Do you want to write to your parents?”

“Oh God yes, but I can’t. Not until some time has passed and the war is won.”

This time the tears left her eyes, and she put her head on his shoulder, too tired to think about who they were to each other and all that came with it.

He said nothing, let her cry, and she felt even worse for crying on their wedding day.

“I’m sorry, I’ll be okay,” she said, wiping her eyes, and he offered her a handkerchief.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“I hate to bring it up but… Carol, were you shaven?”

‘La Tonte’ was a known punishment, inflicted on women who had slept with the enemy all along the war, and even more after the European countries were getting freed. Carol remembered her shame, as they held her on the place with the other women, exposing her slight belly.

“Yes, I was,” she said, running a hand through her hair.

“But you didn’t deserve it, Merle was no Nazi…”

“There was a boy, back in France, Edouard. He was in love with me. When the war happened and we lost so quickly, he became a collaborator, proud to serve the Nazi tyrant. When Paris was liberated, he was caught, and they asked me, if for his crime, he should die.”

She remembered the scene like it was yesterday.

“I said that it was not my decision to make, but that I hoped he would get what he deserved for having sold so many of our fellow French men and women to the Nazis. The liberators, the résistants or freedom fighters, they decided to put him in jail, after beating him up. There was later a moment when people started gathering all the women who had been in bed with the enemy, and there was this other girl, who had been in love with Edouard. She told people I had laid with the Nazi general my parents had been forced to take in when we were under invasion. They tore my clothes and my belly was proof for her lie. So, they shaved me, yes.”

“For having loved my brother instead of this asshat traitor.”

“I guess one can say that.”

“That’s why you can’t write to your parents?”

“You’re damn perceptive for someone who doesn’t know me, I need to work on my - what do you call it? Poker face.”

“I just put two and two together. I saw some things being done on my side of the war, and we knew what was happening on the other side. I figured you had fled.”

“I did. My Papa, he can still play a part, a good part, in history, but he can’t do that with a daughter who has a child out of wedlock and whom people believe is the fruit of a tryst with a Nazi officer. It killed me, and it killed them, but when Maman was trying to salvage my hair, like it mattered, we agreed about me coming to the United States, and maybe try to start a new life there for a while. In the meantime, I can’t reach out to them, because I don’t want to lessen Papa’s influence by reminding people of what they think I did.”

“You talk about them with love, yet, they didn’t defend you…”

“France, it is a messy place right now. There are those who welcomed the occupants, and there are those who pretended like Papa because there was no other choice. If I had been a normal daughter, I would have let him find me a match for a wedding, but I was not normal. Papa didn’t care that I was 23 and not married. Society… They would have judged. And with a baby on the way…. No. We loved each other, and I’ll always love them, but I will never begrudge them for not standing by me publicly. They did so in private and that’s all I can ask.”

“I don’t want you to believe I pity you, but I am sorry, for all you went through. You were strong, you’re still strong. You didn’t deserve to get shaved, and I despise the girl and Edouard and the rest of them for doubting you.”

“Thank you.”

She finally removed her head from his shoulder, and looked for something to say.

Instead, she grabbed his hand, and put it on her stomach, through the dress.

The baby was kicking. The look Daryl gave her was one of utter surprise but also complete delight. She felt hope for whatever would happen next.

 


	6. The Honesymoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to update, but this story is really not dead!

  As she woke up the next morning, in this bed which was fastly becoming « hers » if it made any sense, Carol looked down at her belly, and pressed a hand where the baby was kicking. She almost jumped out of her skin upon spotting the ring on her finger, then the events of the day before all came back to her as sleep wore off.

  She slowly pushed herself up so that she was sitting. She was a married woman. Her groom had been a Dixon, but his first name didn’t match the one she had thought she would marry.

  She remembered the night before, when Andrea and Amy had left, and Daryl and her had lingered in the kitchen.

  “Can I confess something?” She had asked him

  “Anything.”

  “I wasn’t sure about marrying Merle. Don’t get me wrong, I love, or loved him, but there was always a part of me which used to think that when the war would be over, the urgency would fade, and I’d go back to rational thinking. It really doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have married him period, but I felt like I had enough perspective to see that when he had asked, of course I had said yes, but it was the situation, the urgency talking. I didn’t think I was the marrying type. I think you may have gotten… what is the expression again? I think you may have pulled the short straw…”

  “What about the baby?” Daryl had asked, and she remembered how amazed she had been by the fact he didn’t think she was badmouthing his brother.

  “The baby… Ah Mon Dieu. Parfois… Sorry, it’s been such a long day, and the baby has been kicking like mad… I can’t tell when I’m speaking French or not… The thing is… The baby didn’t change anything. I thought I would have time to figure things out with Merle, and maybe marry him. It was not something I refused to do, I just became aware of the fact that had he not gotten dispatched the next day, I may have told him maybe instead of yes. Maybe doesn’t mean no, but it also doesn’t mean yes… Does it make any sense or am I making a fool of myself?”

  “You could never make a fool of yourself. And I get it. One of the guys from my platoon, before we got dispatched, he married this girl he had been sort of betrothed to his entire life. Then we got to the Pacific, and to our base camp, and there he met a nurse, and he was madly in love with her, in a way that nothing could match, not even the fondness he had for the woman he had to call his wife, and I remember him getting drunk more often than he should have, crying that he should never have married his sweetheart, because now it meant that if he cheated on her with the nurse, he would be betraying two good women and would be a jerk. He also believed that if he fooled around with the nurse but got killed during patrols, he would be an even bigger jerk, leaving two women to mourn him when he didn’t deserve their tears.”

  “That is so sad…”

  “Yeah. I guess my point is, Daryl had said, blushing or so it looked, that war is not our natural state of mind, and we end up doing crazy thing we never would have done otherwise. The guy from my platoon, his sweetheart would have probably gotten tired of waiting for him to propose and found another husband. However, with the war… It’s like Reverend Greene said, you know?”

  “I know. The love I have in my heart for Merle is pure, but I think that if the war had not been upon us, I would have thought longer about marrying him before giving an answer, considering if we would be able to love each other for a lifetime, or if it was the adrenaline talking.”

  She had stopped there, not wanting to insult Merle’s memory. It was the last thing she ever wanted to do, but saying those words, it almost felt like she was saying she had regrets or qualms. She had no room for regrets or qualms in her life, not with a baby on the way, but she had needed to say those words. Maybe it had been that life had felt like it was moving too fast, even faster than when she had been a freedom fighter. Maybe it was just something she had felt comfortable sharing, even though it was the most unlikely time to do so, and the wrong person to confess such a thing. Yet, Daryl had not judged and had nodded, letting her know he understood.

  It had felt freeing, to be understood again, after France, and her parents, and the public shaving. She had felt like she was in touch again with a part of her that had had to keep silent for a very long time because of circumstances.

  Carol shook her head, as if to give those thoughts a rest. The night before had been everything and nothing at the same time. Part of her kept thinking that she had gotten married, with an awed inner tone, but the rest of her had felt number. Being in the United Stated, it had not been an easy transition, especially when she hadn’t known whether she would be welcome or not by Merle’s family, but at least, she felt more in touch with who she was.

  She got dressed, thanking silently Andrea, who had gone shopping in her place after taking her measurements. It had seemed too daunting for Carol, to go in town and introduce herself as Mrs Dixon, when she didn’t know who that person was. She supposed she would get to know her as time went by. She didn’t know if she was thrilled or if she was scared, but at least the numbness was fading.

  It had been the only way she had been able to cope with Merle’s death and her public humiliation. She had not pretended she was dead inside, but she had allowed herself to dim her feelings, in order to not feel the outrage and the plain and simple rage.

  She got out, and noticed that it was once again very early in the morning. She told herself she would adjust. This was her new life after all…

  When he got up, Daryl surprised her as she had not heard him enter.

  “Good morning,” he said softly, and she almost dropped the dish she was holding.

  He had looked apologetic, but she had not let it linger.

  “I promised you French Breakfast. And more French meals. But breakfast is a good place to start. Are you hungry?”

  As she looked at him, she felt uncertainty, and shyness. She had gone about and had cooked breakfast, but what if he was not one of those who could enjoy the French way of having it? She had noticed the difference between the American and French breakfast. So early in the morning, would he be willing to meet her halfway, or at least make a few steps in her direction?

  Of course he did in the end, and the both shared a lovely meal where she told him about real French toast and more.

  Maybe being married to Daryl Dixon was something she could get used to, she thought, before laughing at one of his attempt at speaking French.


	7. Visitors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts are very welcome on this chapter....

 He had never thought he’d get married, mainly because he had never thought there would be someone he would want to share that kind of commitment with, but as days went by, Daryl started enjoying married life in unexpected ways.

 For example, he didn’t have to be alone. Sometimes he chose to be, needed to be, but he didn’t have to, it was on his terms. Carol also needed space and time, but they worked in that way.

 He also learnt that putting himself out there was not something to be ashamed of. Sure, it had been so far for small gestures, like getting Carol a hat from the store and bringing it back to her because he was worried she would get sunburnt. He had been so afraid she would not want the hat, that she would… He didn’t really know what he was expecting to be honest, but when he finally worked up the nerve to offer her the stupid box and she had opened it, she had thanked him profusely, saying that she had been wanting one of those but had been afraid to ask.

 “You never have to be afraid to ask,” he had said immediately.

 “I know. Sort of. But when we went shopping for some clothes, the prices… The prices were so high. I know you said you wanted me to have whatever I wanted, but I felt terrible about asking you to spend more money when I could just stay indoors.”

 “You’re not a prisoner. If you want to stay indoors, it’s okay, but I would like you to be able to go out if you chose to. I’m not going to start lying to you, saying things like, money is not an issue. We’re not rich, but we’re not poor. When the fields start producing goods, we could have a good living. Not to mention, a hat is a necessity for someone who is not used to the Georgian sun. So please, if you need something, don’t be afraid to ask.”

 She had smiled shyly, and they had sat down at the table to enjoy another French meal.

 She did almost all of the cooking, but she sometimes let him have a go at it when she was too tired. Otherwise, she would claim it made her feel French, and he got it. She was in a country she didn’t know, with a man she barely knew, starting a life she knew nothing about. Maybe cooking was something that helped her remember who she was and where she came from.

 He sure as hell was not going to complain about the French food. She had told him she was an okay cook, knowing a few dishes but not too many, as her parents had had people to do the cooking for them. Yet, she was a daring cook. He sometimes could tell she was adding things or pairing them up on a whim, and he had never been as well-fed in his life. Furthermore, she enjoyed it. She liked presenting the results of her culinary brainstorming, and she had never done anything that was not worthy of being eaten. He was gaining a few pounds, he could tell, but he would lose it soon working in the fields. In the meantime, he just enjoyed the French food, and the person sitting at the table with him.

 They had been married for ten days, yet it felt like forever. They were slowly getting to know each other, but it was a slow process. They usually spent the days apart, when she would take care of the house and he would start preparing the fields, but then came supper or dinner time, and they would be able to have small talk. Sure, they had rings that bonded them in the eyes of God, but they were taking things at their own pace.

 She had surprised him once, screaming his name when he had been ready to go to bed in his bedroom, and he had run into hers, asking what was wrong.

 He would have been lying if he pretended he had not noticed the fact that she was wearing a nightgown she must have brought from France. It was lacey and… Very pleasant.

 She had lifted her nightgown and he had started to turn around but she had grabbed his hand and put it on her belly, preventing him from moving, and not seeing the underwear she was wearing. Those had been French too, and if the words oh la la had crossed his mind, well, what could he say? He had stopped thinking about it when he had realized the baby was shifting position, and he had felt almost everything, the little head, the small back, an arm then the other, a foot poking. It had been… mesmerizing. How a woman’s body could accommodate a baby turning on itself to feel better at ease was something he had never thought about, but it was now etched into his memory, the way the skin had been stretched but supple, and how it had seemed to be so painful even though Carol had sworn it was not. Apparently, the child often did that when she went to bed, preparing itself for the night to come.

 He had felt blessed she had called him in to witnessed it. Nephew or niece, it was his family too, and he had realized he wanted to be as involved as possible in everything where she didn’t mind having him.

 “Daryl,” she had said, oblivious to the fact that they were both pretty close to naked. “What if it is a girl?”

 “What about it?” he had asked, his hand still on her stomach.

 “We would need a name. We couldn’t call her “Merlette”, which means female Blackbird in French. It would be too…”

 She had not finished her sentence but he had agreed.

 They had stayed in silence for a couple of minutes, before he had said:

 “What about Meredith? It’s close enough to Merle, but it also gives her her own identity. We could call her Meri, or Merlette behind closed doors.”

 “I think I’d like that… Meredith … What was your mother’s name?”

  “Susannah.”

 “Meredith Susannah Capucine Dixon.”

 “Your mom is named Capucine?”

  “Yes. Would it be a problem?” She had asked, and he had seen such uncertainty and worry in her eyes, he had wanted to engulf her in a hug until it all went away.

 Not knowing where this was coming from, he had not gone through with it of course, but the thought had been there…

 “No problem at all.”

 They had looked at each other, almost in awe. Their kid had a name, whether it ended up being a boy or a girl.

 Their kid… He had found himself thinking later in his own bed. It was her and Merle’s baby. He needed to remember it. He had every intention of being a father to the baby, but he didn’t want to forget… To forget that the child was not the proof of his and Carol’s love. That hurt, much more that he had anticipated. Yet, it felt necessary. He was alive, and his brother was dead. He would become a father and an uncle, while his brother was lying somewhere in Europe, hopefully in a decent grave. Merle’s shadow was always over them, and he didn’t want to forget it.

 Yet, at the same time… He remembered Carol saying she may not have married Merle.

 He had shaken his head and forced himself to go to sleep. It was not about who had married whom, it was about the baby she would be giving birth to, and the life they would provide for it. It was about the future, even though they were not yet done dealing with the past.

 All in all though, being married had proved to be… a pleasant surprise. He knew it was thanks to having a good partner.

 His patience got tried though, when the Greene sisters decided to visit.

***

 “Oh My, I hope we’re not interrupting or bothering you!” Maggie had exclaimed when he had let them in.

 Carol had slowly gotten up from the couch where she had been knitting for the baby.

 “I’m Margaret Greene, and this is my younger sister Elisabeth. But you can call us Maggie and Beth,” the brunette had said, when Daryl had failed to introduce them.

 He had manners, but the past ten days had been pretty much just the two of them, and every couple of days Andrea and Amy too. It felt so strange to have visitors, and even stranger to have a wife who was willing to play hostess.

 “It is a pleasure to meet you both.”

 “Father told us you might be in need of friends,” Maggie had said. “Please don’t be offended, our father is like a mother hen when it comes to his parish. We’re all his flock and he’s our shepherd, but he fancies himself a father to all who need one.”

 “That’s very nice of him, and you,” Carol had said, before searching for his eyes.

 He could tell she was lost, maybe as surprised as he was. She had told him about the fact that she was not religious and barely attended church, so having people come from the parish was a shock to her.

 “I’ll get the iced tea,” he had offered. “Please stay seated Care…. Carol”.

 So he had started calling Carol “Care” sometimes. He knew it was ridiculous, her name was so short, she didn’t need a nickname, but he still did it. Like there was the Carol who had lived in France, and the Care he had married. He was still trying to sort out what any of this meant.

 “So, how did you two meet?” Beth had said. “France is a long way from the Pacific. One could wonder how you both ended up with child…”

 “Beth!” Maggie had bellowed, obviously outraged. “You do not get to ask those kind of questions.”

 “Well, I was supposed to marry Daryl, so I get to ask them, don’t I?”

 He had almost dropped the iced tea he had been bringing over and had looked for Carol’s eyes, wanting her to know this was false.

 “I was never going to propose, Beth,” he had sternly told the kid, for she was but a kid. “I rescued you from a well before the war, but you were, and still are, but a child. I do not know where you get this idea that we were betrothed, but Amy for example would have made such a claim with more argument to sustain what she was saying.”

 He had forgotten about the blue-eyed doe. Hell, he had been in the Pacific for close to 5 years, and the only time he had spoken her name had been that one time when he had talked about a little girl he had rescued who had developed a crush on him, much to Merle’s hilarity.

 “I apologize, Mrs. Dixon, I think the sun may have gotten to my sister’s head,” Maggie had said.

 “It’s alright. I remember being young and reading signs wrong. That’s how you learn.”

 “You’re still so young,” Daryl had felt the need to tell her.

 “Yes, but with our little bundle of joy on the way, I feel older. Or perhaps more mature is what I should say?”

 She had looked at him, and for a moment he had forgotten about the Greene sisters.

 Maggie had taken it upon herself to pour everyone iced tea, saying she didn’t want Carol to tire herself.

 It was nice of her, but Daryl had thought about how much strength Carol truly had, every day, any given day, to do mundane things or things that sometimes made her weep, like writing a letter to her parents then tossing it in a makeshift fire.

 He had liked the way she had trusted that he had never given Beth any indication to back up her claim. They were … a team.

 “How far along are you? If you got married a couple of weeks ago, you were already expecting…” Beth kept on saying.

 “Enough,” Daryl had found himself bellowing. “I appreciate you as a fellow parishioner, Beth, and I have the utmost respect for your sister and your father, but you will not make any comment of this sort about my wife. We both know things are being said back in town, and we don’t care. When I met Carol, I knew I had to marry her, and I did. That is all you need to know. That is even more than what you are entitled to ask. The town,” he had said looking at her, for he knew she was feeding the gossip “can talk all they want, we are too busy waiting for the baby to care about anything that is being said.”

 “I apologize, Mr. Dixon…” Maggie had started.

 “Don’t.”

 “You really don’t need to,” Carol had said, jumping in the discussion. “Daryl spoke both our minds, and he spoke it with virulence, but I think we just needed it to be said, once and for all, before people make more assumptions. He doesn’t say it, but I know he is afraid the gossip will bother me and put our baby’s health at risk.”

 “I worry about the both of you,” he had said, coming to sit on the couch next to her.

 “And that’s another reason I married you,“ she had said, grabbing his hand with hers and kissing it. “However you know a little gossip can’t throw any shade on this new adventure for us. I am stronger than you think.”

 “I never underestimated you, I know you’re tougher than I could ever be. You’re probably even tougher than most guys from my platoon…”

  She had laughed, and turned back to Maggie.

 “I am sorry, we’re not being good hosts. So tell me more about you…”

 And Maggie had, while they kept their hands linked. Beth had pouted for a while, until Andrea and Amy had shown up and the discussion had gone on and on.

 At the end of that fateful afternoon, Daryl had been sure of several things: his cousins were ready to die, almost non-figuratively speaking, for Carol, and so was he, absolutely literarily. She had blushed when she had hugged the Stiles sisters’ goodbye, as if she was finally realizing she had a family here.

 It had broken his heart, that she could doubt it for a second, but if war had taught him anything, it was that life was too precious to waste away. She was loved. Amy and Andrea loved her and she loved them.

 As for him… He turned around in his bed and closed his eyes decisively. This was a topic for another day.

 


	8. Tornado, wait, what?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Comments are much welcome!

 He later told her he knew it was coming but he had not known how to break the news to her. She cuddled in his arms, and tried not to whimper.

 Georgia had tornadoes. France did not. This… This thing she had gotten a glimpse of, it was something new, and she didn’t like it one bit.

 She had heard about it on the radio, as they were doing whatever they seemed to be doing these days, and her head had snapped up when the T word had been said.

 “Is he saying what I think he’s saying?” She had asked Daryl, who had gotten this look in his eyes, like he was a deer and she was a riffle shooting his way. She hadn’t meant to be aggressive in any way, but this… this…

 She was lost for words, and he slowly nodded. He got up, and came closer to her, as if he was almost afraid to touch her, but the thing was, she needed him to touch her, to grab her hand, to squeeze it, even for a second. It didn’t have to mean his undying love for her, she just needed… physical contact, something she could cling to while she processed the news.

 A tornado had been coming their way, and all she could think about was the precious being in her belly, and how did they survive that now?

 “”M sorry,” he said, starting to swallow syllables as he often did when he thought he had done something wrong. “I should have warned you. These past few days… I was supposed to start working the fields real good, but when I got outside, I could smell it in the air.”

 She had grabbed his hand and hold it in hers, desperate for something to tether her in this fastly spinning moment. He had squeezed her hand, sitting closer to her.

 “I can’t imagine how scared you must be… I know you guys don’t get it, over there…” He had started, and she had taken a second to marvel at the fact that this guy whom she barely knew was taking such precautions with her, not even saying her country’s name because he was afraid to spark a memory or simply a round of melancholia.

 “I wanted to tell you, but I am not good with words, and I could tell this was a “good with words” moment…”

 “You’re good with words,” she had told him, looking in front of her, far away, or as far as she could. “You’re keeping me from having a full fledged round of hysteria. Tell me more. What do we do? They said it would be on us this evening?”

 “We prepare food, and water, lots of fresh water, just in case,” he said, and she would have sworn he had blushed.

 “Could it last that long?”

 “I don’t think so, but better safe than sorry. The house, it’s seen its fair share of tornadoes, even a couple of hurricanes back in the days, but we rarely get those, like once in a lifetime tops. So we stock food, because the power will go out as it passes over us, and water, just so that we’re safe and we have everything we need. As I’ve said, it’s an old house, but it’s a good thing. We have protection, wooden planks made especially for every window and other glass surfaces. I’ll go hang them around the house in a moment. Oh, I forgot, we need to get candles, and matches. I know we have enough, I had bought in bulk the last time we had a tornado. So, with the storm shutters, much like super solid blinds on every “weak” entry, we bolt the doors. We can move furniture, or I can move furniture rather, ‘cause you’re not carrying anything heavier than a teapot, missy, in front of the door and the main windows if you’d like, to be sure. Usually, the wooden planks are enough, but if it makes you feel safer, I’ll move the furniture. And then, we have supper, dinner, whatever, and we wait. When it’s above us, well, we thank my ancestors for building a solid house. And when it’s over, and you’ll know it is, we start removing stuff so that life can start again, and then I’ll start working on the fields.”

 He was speaking so fast, so unlike him, but some bits made lots of sense. She had indeed been wondering why he had announced he would start working the fields the day before only to say it would wait a couple more days.

 And so here they were. In her bedroom. The tornado had been whirling and making noises for a while now, and it seemed to be almost right on top of them. She hadn’t needed to ask, Daryl had said before he would stay the night in her bedroom, on a chair, just so she would not wake up and be afraid, but she had disagreed. She had needed him near her.

 She was strong, and she needed no man, no sir, but there was something about a natural sort of disaster happening right on top of you, and being alone. She had asked him to climb in bed with her, and he had only agreed if he got to stay over the covers. She had rolled her eyes, trying to make a joke about the lengths a woman had to go to to try and get frisky with him, but he had seen right through the bravado.

 And so there they were. She had placed his hand on her stomach, as her baby was protesting perhaps the stress she was putting it under by being so worried herself. In Daryl’s arms though, she had gotten better, gotten herself under control even.

 “Should we start going to church,” she found herself saying.

 He chuckled in her ear before saying:

 “I really doubt this tornado cares about whether we’re good Christian Church goers or not…”

 She chuckled along before clinging to his arm and saying:

 “I don’t mean because of all of this… When the Reverend’s daughters were over, you mentioned liking the parishioners or something like that, and I know I’ve told you I can’t believe in a God who would have let people get stuffed into trains, never to come back, but I guess I realized then I could be depriving you of something you liked.”

 “I’m still mad at Beth. I know, that’s not the point,” he said, and she felt his arm tighten around her. “I just hated the fact that she felt like she could ask those things and utter those double entendre comments in front of us. Sure the town is saying it, but having a brain means you know when to share it or who to share it with… But back to your point, you’re not depriving me of anything. I mean, we could start going to church, sure. The baby will have to get baptized, and we never discussed if you wanted that to happen in the Protestant way or in the Roman Catholic way, but I doubt today is the moment for us to discuss that… Merle and I… We had ways, to minimize the number of times we had to attend church. It involved working the fields, or pretending we were working the fields. There were a few masses we couldn’t miss, Christmas, Easter for example, but we… I don’t care much for Church. I like the social network it provides, when you need to borrow tools from a neighbor for example, but I don’t trust the Reverend with my soul… Does that make any sense?”

 “Lots. I think, back home, right now, it must be the same way for those who are not sincerely devout. You... You sort of take a step back after all we've seen, and all that we’ve not seen yet but that we’ve heard of. And I know it’s over the top, but I’d like a Roman Catholic baptism, and maybe Reverend Greene could be there too and bless the baby?  I know it’s stupid, and I can’t say why, but my grandma was a devout, a churchgoer who loved it, and she was Catholic, and as we know a baptism must happen, then I want it both ways, whatever way I can get it. I don’t know what life has in store for our baby… Hell, I don’t even know if I’ll get to see it grow…

 “You’re not dying in childbirth. I forbid you. You must obey your husband,” He uttered extremely fast, like he had the previous times she had mentioned being afraid she would make it through the birth, so she went on with her thought:

 “I want the Reverend Greene who believes he’s our shepherd to feel included, and I also want to honor my … family.”

 She didn’t know why it was so hard to say this word. Maybe it was because its meaning was changing, she realized. Before, her family were a parents, siblings, and her grandparents and relatives.. Now her family was much smaller, it was her, the baby, Daryl…. And the Stiles sisters if they had any say in it, she thought, a brief smile gracing her lips.

 “Fine by me,” Daryl said. “We’ve had some of those before, before the war I mean, and I know there’s a priest not far who is Catholic and who had worked with Reverend Greene before. It’s not going to be an issue, so stop pressing my arm so hard, the blood stopped flowing…”

 He was only teasing, but she released her hold on his arm, having been oblivious to the fact that she had pressed it harder when she had felt like she was asking a favor. To him, it was not an issue, it was a decision they were taking as a couple, period.

 “Don’t be too mad at Beth. I will sound like a shrew, but she doesn’t know who will come back from the war, and if they will be safe and sound. When she saw you come back, she must have clung to her delusion as a little girl, because you were safe and sound, and you felt like someone one could build a future with…”

 “Gosh woman, you’re really trying your best to make me blush, but it ain’t gonna happen. I understand your point, but the moment she feels those things and decide to express them in a way that is derogatory to you, it will make me mad. You… You’re perfect.”

 She didn’t know how to answer, her breath stolen away by such an unprompted declaration. She was so far from perfect… She was barely ok most days, or decent, so perfect…

 So she said nothing, but held his hand in hers, over their baby.

 Sleep came extremely easy for two people who had worried so much about the tornado just over their heads, but it was by far the best sleep they would decide they had gotten.

 


	9. Oh My

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've left NL so this is the only place this fic is getting published and or reviewed....

 They were becoming the kind of couple who had visitors over a lot.  

 That was a weird thought, she smiled. A couple? It still made no sense to her, even though she wore his ring and he would be the father to her child, whom, she prayed, she would get to meet and raise. He was a stranger, except when he was not. He had respected her privacy, except when she had called him to witness something and her privacy had been foregone, sort of.

 It was mind-boggling.

 But it was not the thing that was making her smile.

 The day after the tornado, they had woken up together, and it should have been awkward except it hadn’t been. She was starting to feel something she had no words to describe. No, she thought, she was not starting to whatever, she was starting to acknowledge something that had been happening without her noticing for a while. There was no awkwardness between them, no more. At the beginning, sure, she was the woman carrying his brother’s child, but as time went by, they were both coming to terms with the fact that a child didn’t have to have just that one father. It could have two, and it didn’t change a thing. After all, wasn’t there a saying, about a village being needed to raise a child?

 Her mind was a tricky place, she thought, as she realize she had gone off track once more. When the tornado had passed to the next town or wherever, Daryl had gone to remove the blinders, and she had done, well nothing, to be honest, as Daryl had refused to let her use the broom or try to wipe the dust that had made its way around the windows. He was fiercely protective of her, and she thought this with all her heart. She could see the wheels turning in his head, and could tell when he was thinking about her, and when he was thinking about the baby, not to mention when he was worrying about both.

 She had wanted to help clean the house, but after bickering with Daryl for half an hour, the Stiles sisters, or the proverbial angels as she believed them to be, had shown up and told Carol to make them something French and easy while they cleaned the house.

 Andrea was also extremely protective of her, and she had asked her once, very shyly, if she would have married Merle, if he had come back from the war without her. Carol had a feeling, an inkling, that perhaps over time, Andrea had either convinced herself, or realized that this match people seemed to see happening was something she could have lived with. Andrea had avoided her eyes for a second, just a second, but it had been meaningful. She had swallowed, and had turned back to Carol, saying she didn’t linger on “what ifs”. To break the tension she hadn’t meant to provoke, Carol had tried to explain to Andrea a French saying “avec des si on pourrait mettre Paris en bouteille”, which meant that when you planned things using as many “ifs” as needed, you could make anything come true, even have Paris fit into a bottle. It had made the woman laugh, as she had had a hard time grasping that.

 Carol had had a hard time explaining it quite frankly, but as time went by, she felt the need to speak French. It was part of her identity. It was a link to her parents.

 “Will the baby speak French?” Andrea has asked, as if in tune with Carol’s thoughts.

 Daryl had been making his way over to them and had heard the questions. Carol hadn’t known what to answer, as they had just started breaching those subjects, and she had looked at him.

 “The baby will speak French, or at least that’s my wish,” Daryl had said. “I had a laughing fit a couple of nights ago, picturing our kid, boy or girl, telling other children off in French. I know it’s bad, and I should never encourage such behavior from my kid, but yeah, I look forward to it.”

 They all had this way, of picturing the future, Carol had thought, and she was always in it for them. It was not even a question of how things went, to them, she would make it through.

 She was not so sure. She was a city girl, where the midwife lived 5 minutes away from you. They were… people from Georgia, where the population was disseminated over the lands, and she had no idea who qualified as a midwife.

 As if reading her thoughts again, Andrea had said, grabbing Carol’s hand:

 “Amy and I, we know how babies are born. We have never actually been midwives to a birth, but when you came into our lives, we asked the doctor for tips the last time he was in town, and he was extremely willing to share. He gave us books.”

 Carol tried to say thank you, but she just couldn’t, as she felt like she would burst into tears.

 She had squeezed Andrea’s hand, and had smiled at her.

 “See,” Daryl had said, looking at her, “you’re not dying in childbirth. I told you, I forbid you to. It’s my prerogative as your husband, and you will listen.”

 Carol and Andrea had burst out laughing, because he obviously meant it, but he was also playing the over manly man, that sort of men who thought whatever they said went, period. That was not him, but she liked the fact that he was hanged on this development. She knew it came from a good place, not because he was afraid of raising a baby on his own, but because they had made a contract when they had married, till death did them apart, and he was apparently quite willing to bargain with death for it to forget them for a while.

 It had been a good day.

 After that, they had been having more and more visitors. They didn’t go into town, or Church, even though they wanted to talk to the Reverend Greene, and he had come over. He had listened to their wish for the baptism, and hadn’t looked a bit disgruntled at the fact that his parish would welcome a Roman Catholic baby amongst its midst.

 “God is everywhere,” he had told them, when he had noticed they had both been afraid he would be offended. “God is almighty and everywhere. Religions may have different ways to worship Him and thank Him for His graces, but when you think about it, we all believe in the same being. Our ways to worship differ, but that doesn’t mean we’re not all praising Him. When your child is baptized a Catholic, and blessed an Evangelist, he’ll have been in fact blessed twice, and welcomed into two different communities. You’re giving your baby all the luck in the world. I could never begrudge anybody for looking out for their children. Which reminds me….”

 Maggie had apparently told her father about her visit with Beth, and the reverend had apologized to Carol, who had insisted it was not needed.

 “She was right, in her own way, not about the fact that I had stolen her man, but I guess I did steal a man, one of yours, when there are plenty or so back in France,” she had said, wanting to call it home, yet feeling like this hot and scalding place where they had tornadoes was home. “I’m quite aware she was only saying what many unmarried young women may be thinking silently, and I don’t begrudge them either.”

 “That is very kind of you, but it won’t prevent me from talking about it during my next sermon. I’ll use metaphors of course, but I do not want you to feel unwelcome, Carol. You are now one of us.”

 That time, she had cried, unable to stop herself, hiding her face against the Reverend’s chest, as Daryl held her hand. She had apologized later, and they told her they would have none of that, but still she was beyond thankful. It would have been so easy to point fingers at her, to infer bad things and more. Yet, she was discovering she was richer than she thought, fortunate as she was to be able to count on more people than she had dreamed she would ever have in her life.

 She had asked the Reverend to forgive Daryl and her for not attending Church, explaining that she was still getting used to the heat and was afraid to cause a spectacle if she were to faint during his service.

 He had told her they would come when they would be ready, and had left.

 Then Maggie had come around, again, without her sister, and when they had sipped tea, she had admitted to having developed great hopes to marry, as there was a young man, who apparently came from a family of Korean immigrants, who worked at the shop, and Maggie was as taken with him as he was with her.

 The Stiles sisters were there almost every day, if only for a small moment.

 The Sheriff had come by too. As his wife had died shortly after giving birth to their second child, the US army had given him a dispense from enrolling so that he could take care of his son and daughter. He had asked Carol very politely if when the baby was born and she had time on her hands, she would be willing to try and teach his son some French. She had agreed of course, saying the child was welcome even before the baby was born. They all were taking her in, and she felt so thankful for the small ways they had of making her feel like she belonged.

 Her village was all built it seemed, which happened at the perfect time. She looked at Andrea and Maggie who were discussing something she couldn’t keep up with, when her water broke.

 “Time to give birth and see if I make it to the other end,” she joked, before cringing and moaning as pain overcame her.

 “I’ll get Daryl,” Maggie had said.

 “Yes please.”

 She needed him there. The baby was a month early. She desperately needed him there. A few minutes later, as she was trying to get in bed, Andrea bossing her around, Daryl appeared, all sweaty, and worried.

 “Are you okay?” He asked, rushing to her side.

 “I am now,” She answered, before squeezing his hand so hard she probably broke bones when another wave of pain overcame her.

 


	10. Miracles

  Daryl looked at his daughters, filled with awe. Yeah, that was right, daughters, as in more than one.

  Meredith Capucine had been the first one to show her head and meet her parents. France Susannah had quickly followed, not wanting to be left out.

  It had been a very long labor, but Carol had suffered through it all, complaining, as she sure was entitled to, but also never pretending that she couldn’t do it. He had noticed it before, the fact that she had been afraid about dying in childbirth, but when the time had come, it seemed to have sparked in her the belief that she was not dying, that there was no way in Hell she would die. She was to be a mother, and she had gone through too much to just … let it go.

  He wasn’t sure how long the labor had been. Nineteen hours maybe? Just a few minutes shy of twenty? He had fought the war, and come out of it alive, but he was sure, without a shadow of a doubt, that if he had been in Carol’s place, by hour three, he would have asked for a merciful killing. Yes sir, he would have.

  “I so would have,” he whispered to baby Meredith.

  The babies slept in the same bassinet, and they seemed happy with this arrangement. They were using the furniture he and Merle had been raised in, and they had not had any time when the babies had appeared to purchase anything. They had bottles, and diapers and clothes, that they had bought before the birth, but Andrea had gone to town the day after the twins had been born to make sure they had enough of those. Neither parents had felt comfortable leaving the other to go do that shopping, so once again, they had been grateful for Andrea.

  As a matter of fact, Andrea was Meredith’s Godmother, and Amy was France’s. The Reverend Greene would hopefully agree to be their Godfather.

  It had been Carol’s idea, and even though she knew it made little sense for two Roman Catholic children to have a Protestant priest as a Godfather, he was the only man she felt comfortable entrusting with her children’s care should the worst happen. Daryl had agreed. Hell, after twenty hours of labor, he would have agreed to anything, even the silliest things. He had felt drained. Then again he had not been the one doing the hard work…

  Carol was sleeping right now, as he had begged her to take a nap. She was still exhausted, the babies had been born three glorious days before. France was significantly smaller than Meredith, which was why they had never suspected she was there too, but she was growing fast.

  They both had his eyes and their mother’s features.

  He gently brushed his hand against France’s little one, and she immediately grabbed his finger. He didn’t know if babies were supposed to be doing that. He liked to think that his daughters were extraordinary, just like their mother.

  He thought about his brother, and hoped he would understand, and be happy. When the time would be right, the girls would know about him, he would never be forgotten, but Daryl was their father. He was the one getting up at night to help Carol, preparing bottles as she couldn’t breastfeed the girls, something she deeply regretted the first day. He had told her there was no shame in that, thought he had no experience in the matter to be a true authority, but to him, not producing enough milk for two little girls who had gotten their appetite from the Dixon side of the family was really nothing to be ashamed of. She had smiled, and had thanked him.

  Selfishly, and he had told her so, Daryl was sort of happy bottles were needed. It allowed him to be more involved, and to interact with those two little yet perfect creatures who had just graced this earth with their presence.

  Maggie who had stuck around during the birth to help in any way she could had made Daryl so proud when she had said upon seeing the girls for the first time:

  “I think we know who will be breaking boys’ hearts left and right in 15 years’ time… I hope you will keep your shotgun in handy, Mr. Dixon.”

  He had beamed, feeling so weird, as he had felt like a proud papa. Those were his daughters, and they were perfect, and he was being extremely objective because other people were telling him that they were amazing.

  Meredith smacked her mouth open a couple of time then went back to sleep.

  God, he could spend hours watching them, even when they were doing nothing.

  “One day, girls, I’ll tell you about my brother. Your mom will tell you her stories too. You will grow up knowing him through our stories, and one day we will give you the final clue to understand where it all fits in. You will never not know him. I just hope you will have enough place in your heart for me too.”

  “They will,” he heard Carol say from the door.

  He wanted to rush to her, as she was looking exhausted, but at the same time, he didn’t want to let go of France’s hand. He briefly noticed that Carol had abandoned her French undergarments, and was now wearing one of his shirts. When the birth had been over, Andrea had come to him, asking for spare clothes of his as she had a feeling Carol would feel the need to hide her body for a while, as she adapted to who she was now, and what it meant. He had gladly given almost all his drawers’ content to his wife. Seeing her wearing his clothes always filled him with a new sense of pride. In some ways, his shirts felt much more enticing than French lingerie, and that was saying a lot.

  He pushed those thoughts away from his mind. She was his wife, but she was not “his wife” and he was fine with that. He just needed to remind himself from time to time that they had their own special history. It was so easy to forget… Being married to Carol, it felt like … the most natural thing in the world. The most obvious thing too, like there could have been no one but Carol to feel those shoes.

  She came close to him, and he grabbed her by the waist, as he was afraid she would fall. He felt like he was trespassing but she didn’t seem to think so, as she put her head on his shoulder, watching their girls.

  “I wish Maman could see them.”

  There were tears in her eyes, and while he knew she had been emotional because of the birth, those tears were not induced by anything but grief.

  “I wish she could too. Maybe… Maybe when things have settled down a bit, and if we manage to really make money from selling our crops, when I get around to planting them, maybe then, in a couple of years, we could introduce the girls to your mother.”

  “Could we… I mean, I know you always say yes, but you can say no… Could we ask the guy from the journal to take their picture? I don’t know how expensive it would be…”

“But you’d be able to send those to your brother in England who would be able to get them to your parents…” He finished for her.

  “Yes. It’s silly, isn’t it?”

  “Never. And even if it was, who cares? I’m not kidding, I hope your parents will get to meet our precious bundles of joy. They are the only grandparents the girls have, and I hope that we can find a way to keep in touch… Maybe we can buy our own camera. I don’t know, we’ll see. I feel like I’m on a high, but at the same time, I’m exhausted…”

  He immediately felt like an idiot uttering those words to the woman who had done the work needed for their daughters to be born, but she only laughed against his shoulder before saying:

  “It’s the hormones. Wait ‘til the quickly changing moods hit you. You’ll be in for a hell of a ride.”

  He nudged her shoulder and she nudged back. They remained huddled together as they watch the two little blonde girls sleep quietly.

   Tomorrow, they would share their little wonders with the world, but right now, they just wanted to enjoy being a family.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts most welcome. It's unebated as you may have noticed but I'm on my own, for better or worse...


	11. Letting Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter. Hope you'll have enjoyed the ride!

Carol sighed, watching her perfect daughters sleep. The day had been a good one, for all of them, and she found herself thinking back about lunchtime.

“Come on, finish your bottle, or I’ll learn terrible things to say in French and you’ll get second hand embarrassment from being near me…” Daryl had been telling Susannah.

By the stoves, Carol had chuckled. The babe was three months old, and he was threatening with embarrassing her in ten years’ time at least, it made her sort of her melt inside. He was in this for the long howl. She had known it of course, they had gotten married so that her daughters would have a father and a family, but there was something way too endearing about the way Daryl made plans and stuck to them. One day, he would be flying them all to France, and he would meet her parents, and she would be able to have her revenge on those who had shamed her before.

“Don’t think I can’t hear you laughing over there, Mrs Dixon, I’ll let you know that you’ll be embarrassed too!” He had said, without lifting his head, and she had laughed out loud, making Meredith gurgle in turn.

“Way too many women in this family…” He muttered.

“Wait till I tell Andrea and Amy you said that!”

“You’re proving my point.”

He got up and put the babe on the floor on her blanket with her sister, and the two immediately started babbling together like they hadn’t been together all day.

“Do you think Sue is trying to warn Meri about my plans to humiliate them when they try to seduce boys back in France?” Daryl asked as he made his way to Carol.

She couldn’t help but laugh again, until she stopped in her tracks.

“What? What’s happening?” Daryl asked, obviously aware of the change in her mood.

She didn’t mean to make him worry, but she felt like she had been struck by lightning.

“I’m happy,” she said, looking at him with an almost sorry smile.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing….”

“But it is a bad thing!”

She could feel her French accent coming back.

“Happiness is fleeting, only doom remains. I am happy right now, with my daughters, our daughters, and I’m all too aware that this is fleeting. You’ll want a divorce soon, and I’ll be back to being miserable, while putting on a brave face for the girls.”

“Why would I want a divorce?” He asked, awestricken by her speech.

“It is the way of the world. When one gets too happy, something happens, like war, or death, and then you are not happy anymore.”

“Growing up, wouldn’t you say you were happy?”

“Yes, of course, but I was a child. Children are supposed to be happy.”

“So what, when you turn 18, your happiness gets fleeting? You have to wait for the other shoe to drop?” He asked, baffled.

She would have a hard time trying to explain what she was feeling. Perhaps it was related to the life she had left behind in France. Having needed to run when the country was finally free, she was worried this would become a pattern in her life.

“Besides, you could be the one wanting a divorce,” Daryl said, looking away from her.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Right back at you!” He said. “You’re the one being ridiculous!”

“See? We’re fighting already, divorce will be next, and then…”

And then he had kissed her.

Jesus Christ and all the Apostles… Talk about the kind of kiss that made you melt… She had been surprised, yet at the same time, it had felt like the culmination of something. They had been playing “boy likes girl and vice versa” for a while, or so it felt. They would tease each other, and there would be tension, the good kind, the sort that made you wonder when you would get naked and get it on.

She had grabbed the back of his neck, playing with the hair there, and he had pressed his body against hers. She could tell that he was exerting control over himself, and she felt like they needed to get working on making a younger brother for the girls as soon as possible.

They had parted, but their eyes had stayed locked for a while.

“We’re not fighting anymore,” he had said. “Let’s postpone the divorce for some time.”

“Ok”, She had said, feeling suddenly cold as he had let her go and she realized she wanted back in his arms.

After Merle… After Merle things had been a mess, not that the poor soul had anything to do with it, but her life had gone down straight to hell, and she had never thought she could feel those things again, those desires. She remembered when Daryl had said upon their wedding night that he would not force himself upon her, and that if they were to happen, they would, in time. He probably had said it in jest in response to what she had been saying, but as time had gone by, he had been right on the nose on that part.

He had given her one last look, and he had gone outside.

That had been hours ago. She had seen him dig something, then stay away. She had fed the girls, and they were now sleeping.

She hadn’t meant to imply they needed to get a divorce. They didn’t need one per se, but after the war… After Merle and all of it, she had started believing you only got small instances of happiness, that it was not the way you could lead your life anymore. The war had made it impossible.

She made sure the girls were warm, then she made her way outside, slowly walking through the fields where Daryl had started working, and she went all the way to the spot where he was.

Her breath caught in her chest as she spotted a cross, and thus a grave.

The hole was dug up, but Daryl seemed to be waiting for something.

“What’s happening?” She asked.

He didn’t answer, but she noticed that he had his brother’s dog tags in his hand.

He was trying to bury Merle, to give him the proper acknowledgement he deserved, by putting his grave on the land where he had been born and had lived.

The metaphor also wasn’t lost on Carol, about what it meant, for Daryl to dig up that grave now, after the girls had been born, after they had grown tighter and tighter… After she had fallen in love with him really. Did he know that? Could he tell that?

“If we put the dog tags in the ground, where Merle should have been, we’re not forgetting him. No amount of dirt we will put back in his grave will make him any less real.”

“I know. I don’t want to make him disappear. He’s my brother, and in his death, he found a way to make me meet you and…”

“And you felt like maybe it was time to acknowledge that even though we love him, will forever love him, and the girls will know about him, his place is not in the house anymore. He’s dead, much to our dismay.”

“If I put his dog tags in the ground, I feel like I’m inflicting death on him, yet it feels like… Like he’s the one in your bed even though you’re not interested anymore in having him there.”

She put a hand on his arm, and she kissed his cheek.

“We’re not saying Adieu, we’re only saying farewell. You’ve done good Merle, by me, by your brother. I can never thank you enough for bringing me to this place. I can never thank you enough for granting me this life.”

“Your daughters will know about you.”

“They’re your daughters too. More than they are his. It’s not a contest, it’s about… acknowledging. We’ve been using Merle’s ghost as an excuse not to do things that might change everything. By putting his tags in the ground, perhaps we will be granting him peace of mind, by letting him know we’ll be okay and he can go wherever he wants to go, and be happy.”

The tension in Daryl felt palpable. She guessed it had to do with the fact that he probably thought he was living his brother’s life.

“I was never your brother’s wife,” she said, hoping he would understand.

He looked at her, and grabbed her hand for him to kiss.

“So we’re saying goodbye?”

“And good luck. And thank you.”

He needed a moment then nodded. Their hands linked, he put his other hand forward, and dropped the tags. Carol grabbed a handful of terra and threw it in the grave, saying “thank you” and “I will always love you but I have moved on” in French.

Daryl started filling back the grave he had made, big enough for an actual man.

Carol stayed by his side, knowing that this was not a simple thing.

Slowly, they walked back to the house, and he went to wash himself from all the dirt. When he was finished, she was waiting for him in the hallway, and took his hand, leading him to her bedroom, making it theirs.

The girls slept through the night, but their parents didn’t, saying what they needed to say but also doing what they had wanted to do for a while.

***

Nine months later, a little Jonas Matthieu Merle Dixon made a big entrance into the world.

“Are you happy?” Carol had asked as Amy was handing him the baby.

She was sweaty and in pain and nowhere done, but he had been there, and he had held her hand, and it was not your average moment or at least it didn’t feel so.

“We’re not getting a divorce, Mrs. Dixon, ‘m afraid we’re not.”

“That’s quite unfortunate, Mr. Dixon”, she had joked, knowing what he meant.

“Oh well, life had a way of playing tricks on you, wouldn’t you say?”

He had kissed her lips before Amy had hushed him away. Carol smiled, thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, happiness was not completely off the table as she may have once thought so.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I would really like to know what you think, if you're willing to go with it, and more. It is unbetaed until I find someone willing. Thank you.


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